Apple not to Disturb ‘Do Not Disturb’ bug

Consumer NewsBy Janey DaviesOn January 3, 2013

Apple has today confirmed that it will not be fixing the Do Not Disturb feature on the iPhone, as it will fix itself on Monday. The popular Do Not Disturb feature allows users to stop their iPhones ringing, unless specific or persistent callers are ringing. However, since January 1, a glitch in the app has meant that the feature has not turned itself off at a certain time.

Apple have released a new support document in which they recognised the problem with the function, highlighting it as “After January 1st, 2013, Do Not Disturb mode stays on past its scheduled end time.” However, it added that the “Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013. Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off.”

In normal practice, iPhone users should have the option to schedule when the feature turns itself off and the phone resumes normal operation. It is thought that the problems may have occurred around the New Year, because of the way the software formats dates at this specific time.

Apple iOS developer Patrick McCarron suggested on Twitter that Apple had made a common mistake by incorrectly formatting how the iOS software defines dates, allowing the underlying software, based on Unix, to define the final week of 2012 as ending on January 7.

This is not the first time that Apple has had a problem with dates. In March 2011, the iPhone 4 clocks went back rather than forward as daylight saving changed. Earlier in the same year, a clock glitch prevented alarms from sounding on New Year’s Day, and the devices also struggled to adjust to the end of daylight savings time back in November.

The glitch affected iPhone owners who subscribe through both AT&T and Verizon.

The simple solution, put forward by Apple, which was to either shut down the phone or switching it to and from airplane mode – offered little comfort to users who had already missed appointments on Sunday.

When clocks went back in 2010, the iPhone’s clock did automatically go back one hour as planned, but unfortunately a fault meant the alarm didn’t synchronise. This meant that iPhone users were woken up an hour later than intended.